Village (card category)

Village is the informal generic name for the family of cards which offer the ability to play more than one terminal action in a turn—so called because many of them have "village" in their names. They are also sometimes called splitters. The simplest village card is Village itself. Typically, these cards offer +2 Actions, but there are some village cards which give this effect in other ways.

The presence of villages in a given kingdom is important because having a cap on the number of terminal actions that can be played in a turn is a significant limiting factor in the potential of decks that can be built; kingdoms with villages and kingdoms without villages play very differently. Without the presence of villages in a kingdom, the focus of most decks shifts to the non-terminals, plus the most desirable terminal available.

Every small Dominion expansion has at least two villages, and every other expansion has at least three.

Throne Room and its variants (Crown, Royal Carriage, King's Court) are definitely villages, even though it may not be obvious at first. The effects of these cards will enable the same types of decks that other villages do.

Lost Arts and Teacher can give the +1 Action token, which gives the same effect, just with a different flavor.

These cards are definitely villages, but you have to jump through some hoops to get the effect.

For some people it may be useful to think of these cards separately than the above list because you have to go through an explicit check to make sure it actually works on a given kingdom, other people don’t see it that way. Some people might even bring Royal Carriage, Lost Arts, or Peasant/Teacher down to this list because they make more sense here.

With Prince and Summon, there has to be an action that can cost or less, or else the effect doesn’t work.

With Diplomat, there needs to be a way to have 5 or fewer cards in hand after playing it, or else the effect doesn’t work.

With Golem, there needs to be some other non-terminal on the board for the effect to work past the first play of Golem.

For Herald, Ironmonger, and Piazza, you need to have enough Action cards in your deck to reveal an Action card often enough to get the effect a useful amount of times.

These cards are definitely villages, but they have some limiting factor that should probably be taken into account when considering the decks that can be built with them.

When given a kingdom with only these villages, it can be useful to go through the line of reasoning for when there are no villages, but modify it with the limiting factor — “What can I do when I can only play 2 terminals per turn?” instead of just one per turn, for example.

Sauna/Avanto, as a split pile, is difficult to get a lot of, so the number of terminals that can realistically be played is limited by that and the fact that sometimes it can be difficult to line them up properly and get maximum value.

Disciple and Ghost can be hard to get in multiples and there is a limited supply of them.

Madman works great when played, but it’s a one-shot and in order to get more of them, you have to not buy any cards on a turn, which is a very high cost.

With Tribute the player on your left needs to have enough Action cards in their deck to reveal an Action card often enough to get the effect a useful amount of times.

Acting Troupe is a one-shot; it gives you a bunch of villagers that can be used for +Actions whenever you want, but once you've used them up, you're out of +Actions.

These cards fit the definition of village used here, and with just the right circumstances can be useful for this effect. However, it is almost never worth building a deck that relies on getting the village effect from these cards alone.

Dame Molly only allows for one additional terminal action per turn; and on top of that she can sometimes be lower in the pile or your opponents could get her instead. Plus, she dies to other Knights.

Tactician only gives one extra action, and it requires playing a Tactician on the previous turn to get it.

Pixie is also a one-shot and only gives a 1/12 chance of actually getting the village effect each time it's played (The Field's Gift).

Fool gives the state Lost in the Woods which also gives the same 1/12 chance of getting the village effect at the start of your turn.

Donald X. Vaccarino has explained that the reason cards that give +2 Actions are often named after "villages" or other populated places (e.g., City, Hamlet) is because extra Actions are thematically represented by "a group of people doing things for you". The only cards that always provide +2 Actions but whose names do not represent populated places are from Dark Ages: Dame Molly, Madman, and Wandering Minstrel.

Ruined Village is the only card with "village" in its name that does not provide +2 Actions; as a Ruins, it is notionally a village that has been stripped of most of its ability.

An inexperienced player who buys too many villages and not enough terminal Actions is informally referred to as a "village idiot".